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SPEECHES 



BEFORE THE 



illa0j0acl)U0ett0 ^nti-Slauerg Sotit% 



JANUARY, 1852. 



WENDELL PHILLIPS 



d^ 



V 



BOSTON: 
PUBLISHED BY ROBERT F. WALLCUT, 

NO. 21 CORNHILL. 

1852. 



B 3 I 5 : 

BT pazanss iSD sawtsb. 
11 DevDnahire Screec. 



SPEECH 



AT THE MELODEON, WEDNESDAY ETEXING, J.^'. 28. 

[PBOKOGBAPHICAIiLT BXPOETEB BT J. M. W, TEBBIKTOK.] 



Me.. President : -^ I hare been tldnking, Trlule sitting here, of tlie differ- 
ent situations of the Anti- Slavery cause no-w and one rear ago, wlien the 
last anniTersary of this Society -was held. To some, it may seem that -we 
had more sources of interest and of public excitem.ent on that occasion than 
■we have no"w. We had "with us, during a portion, at least, of that session, 
the eloquent advocate of our cause on the other side of the water. We had 
the local excitement and the deep interest which the first horror of the 
Fugitive Slave Bill had aroused. We had, I believe, in our midst, some 
Fugitives, just arrived from the house of bondage. It may seem to many 
that, meeting as we do to-day robbed of all these, we must be content with 
a session more monotonous and less effectual in arousing the community. 
But, when we look over the whole land ; when we look back upon the scenes 
which have transpired in our own Commonwealth, at Christiana, at Syracuse ; 
at the passage through the coimtry of the great Hungarian ; at the present 
state of the public mind, it seems to me that no year, during the existence 
of the Society, has presented more encouraging aspects to the Abolitionists. 
The views which our friend (Pahkek PrLLSBirET) has just presented are 
those upon which, in our most sober calculation, we ought to rely. Give 
us time, and, as he has said, talk is all-powerfoL We are apt to feel our- 
selves overshadoTred in the presence of colossal institutions. We are apt, in 
coming up to a meeting of this kind, to ask what a few hundred or a few 
th^isand persons can do against the weight of government, the mountainous 
odds of majorities, the influence of the press, the power of the pulpit, the 
organization of parties, the omnipotence of wealth. At times, to carry a 
favorite purpose, leading statt^smen have endeavored to cajole the people 
into the idea that this age was like the past, and that a " rub-a-dub A^ta- 
tion," as ours is contemptuously styled, Tras only to be despised. The time 



'/ 



4 SPEECH. 

has been when, as oiir friend observed, from the steps of the Revere House 
— yes, and from the depots of New York raihoads — Mr. Webster has de- 
scribed this Anti- Slavery Movement as a succession of lectures in school 
houses — the mere efforts of a few hundred men and women to talk together, 
excite each other, arouse the public, and its only result a little noise . He 
knew better. He knew better the times in which he lived. No matter 
where you meet a dozen earnest men pledged to a new idea — wherever you 
have met them, you have met the beginning of a Revolution Revolutions 
are not made, they come. A Revolution is as natural a growth as an oak. 
It comes out of the past. Its foundations are laid far back. The child feels ; 
he grows into a man, and thinks ; another, perhaps, speaks, and the world 
acts out the thought. And this is the history of modem society. Men un- 
deiwalue the Anti-Slavery Movement, because they unagine you can always 
put your finger on some illustrious moment in history and say, here com- 
menced the great change which has come over the nation. Not so. The 
beginning of great changes is like the rise of the ^lississippi. A child must 
stoop and gather away the pebbles to find it. But soon it swells on broader 
and broader, bears on its ample bosom the navies of a mighty Republic, fills 
the Gulf, and diAides a Continent. 

I remember a story of Napoleon that illustrates my meaning. We are apt 
to trace his control of France to some noted victory, to the time when he 
camped in the Tuilleries, or when he dissolved the Assembly by the stamp 
of his foot. He reigned in fact when his hand was first felt on the helm 
of the vessel of state, and that was far back of the time when he had con- 
quered in Italy, or his name had been echoed over two Continents. It was 
on the day -when five himdred irresolute men were met in that Assembly 
which called itself, and pretended to be, the govermnent of France. They 
heard that the mob of Paris was coming the next morning, thirty thousand 
strong, to turn them, as was usual in those days, out of doors. And where did 
this seemingly great power go for its support and refuge ? They sent Tallien 
to seek out a boy heutenant, — the shadow of an officer, — so thin and pallid 
that when he -was placed on the stand before them, the President of the As- 
sembly, fearful, if the fate of France rested on the shrunken form, the 
ashy check before him, that all hope was gone, asked — "Young man, can 
you protect the Assembly ? " And the ashen lips of the Corsican boy parted 
only to reply — "I always do what I undertake." Then and there Napoleon 
ascended his throne ; and the next day, from the steps of St. Roche, thun- 
dered forth the cannon which taught the mob of Paris, for the first time, that 
it had a master. That was the commencement of the Empire. So the Anti- 
Slavery Movement commenced unheeded in that " obscure hole " which 
Mayor Otis could not find, occupied by a printer and a black boy. 

In working these great changes, in such an age as ours, the so-ca^d 
statesman has far less influence than the many little men who, at various 
points, arc silentlj' maturing a regeneration of jjublic opinion. This is a 
reading and thinking age, and great interests at stake quicken the general 
intellect. Stagnant times have been when a great mind, anchored in error, 
might snag the slow-moving ciu'rent of society. Such is not our era. Noth- 



SPEECH, 5 

ing but Freedom, Justice and Truth is of any permanent advantage to the 
mass of mankind. To these society, left to itself, is always tending. In our 
day, great questions about them have called forth all the energies of the 
common mind. Error suffers sad treatment in the shock of eager intellects. 
" Everybody," said TallejTand, " is cleverer than anybody ; " and any name, 
however illustrious, wliich Unks itself to abuses, is sure to be overAvhehned 
by the impetuous current of that society which, (thanks to the press and a 
reading public,) is potent, always, to clear its o-wti channel. Thanks to the 
Printing Press, the people now do their own thinkuig, and statesmen, as 
they are styled — men in office — have ceased to be either the leaders or 
the clogs of society. 

This view is one that Mr. Websteii ridiculed in the depots of New York. 
The time has come when he is obliged to change his tone ; when he is 
obliged to retrace his steps — to acknowledge the nature and the character 
of the age iii which he lives. Kossuth comes to this country — penniless, 
and an exile ; conquered on his own soil ; flung out as a weed upon the 
waters ; nothing but his voice left — and the Secretary of State must meet 
him. Now, let us see what he says of his " rub-a-dub Agitation," which 
consists of the voice only — of the tongue, which our friend Pillsbury has 
described. This is that " tongue " which the impudent statesman declared, 
from the driuiken steps of the Kevere House, ought to be silenced — this 
tongue, which was a "rub-a-dub Agitation" to be despised, when he spoke 
to the farmers of New York. 

He says — " AVe are too much inclined to underrate the power of moral 
influence." Who is ? Nobody but a Revere House statesman. " We are 
too much inclined to miderrate the power of moral influence, and the influ- 
ence of pubUc opinion, and the influence of the principles to which great 
men — the hghts of the world and of the present age — have given their 
sanction. Who doubts, that in oru- struggle for liberty and independence, 
the majestic eloquence of Chatham, the profoimd reasoning of Burke, the 
biu-ning satire and irony of Col. Barre, had influences upon our fortunes 
here in America ? They had influences both ways. They tended, in the 
flrst place, somewhat to diminish the confidence of the British ministry in 
their hopes of success, in attempting to subjugate an injured people. They 
had influence another way, because all along the coasts of the country — 
and all our people in that day Hved upon the coast — there was not a reading 
man who did not feel stronger, bolder, and more determined in the assertion 
of his rights, when these exhilarating accents fi'om the two Houses of Par- 
liament reached him from beyond the seas." 

" I thank thee, Jew ! " This " rub-a-dub Agitation," then, has influence 
both ways. It diminishes the confidence of the Administration in its power 
to execute the Fugitive Slave Law, which it has imposed so insolently on 
the people. It acts on the reading men of the nation, and in that single fact 
is the whole story of the change. "NMierever you have a reading people, 
there every tongue, every press is a power. Mr. Webster, when he ridi- 
eiiled in New York the Agitation of the Anti-Slavery body, supposed he 
was li%-ing in the old feudal times, when a statesman was an integral element 



6 -SPEECH. 

in tiie State, an '■sgp'itMa powiez in tiimaglf. He most hare supposed himself 
speaking in &Qse ages -wlien a great man outweighed the masses. He finds 
now that he is Kving muck later, in an age -when the accumTilated common 
^nse of the people ontweighs the greatest statesman or the most influential 
individuaL Let me illustrate the difference of our times and the past in this 
matter, by their difference in another respect. The time has been \rhen men 
cased in iron from head to foot, and disciplined by long years of careful in- 
stmction, went to battie. Those were the days of nobles and kniglits ; and 
in such times, ten knights, clad in steel, feared not a whole field of unarmed 
peasantry, and a hundred moi at arms have conquered thousands of the 
common people, or held Ihem at bay. Those were the times when "SVcrs- 
EI.BIED, the Swiss palsdo^ led his host against the Austrian phalanx, and, 
fin fling it impenetrable to the thousands of Swiss who threw themselTes on 
the serried lances, gathered a dozen in his arms, and drawing them^ together, 
made thus an inlet into the dose set ranks of the Atistcians, and they were 
OTerbome by die actual mass of numbers. Gunpowder came, and then, any 
finger that could pull a trigger was equal to the highest bom and the best 
disciplined ; knightly armor, and horses clad in steel, went to the ground 
before the courage and strength that dwelt in the arm of the peasant, as 
■weH as that of the prince, "What gunpowder did for war, the printing press 
has done for the mind, and the statesman is nc^onger clad in the steel of 
education, but every reading man is his judge. Every thoughtful in an, the 
country through, that makes up an opinion, is his jury, to which he answers, 
and tiie tribunal to which he must bow. Mr. "Webstee, therefore, does not 
overrate the power of this " rub-a-dub Agitation," which KossrxH has now 
adopted, " stealing our thunder." (Laughter and applause.) He does 
not overrate the power of this " rub-a-dub Agitation," when he says — 
" Another great mistake, "gentlonen, is sometimes made. [Yes, in Bowdoin 
Square I] "We think nothing powerful enough to stand before despotic 
power. There is something strong enough, quite strong enough ; and if 
properly exerted, it wiD. prove itself so ; and that is, the power of intelligent 
public opinion." " I r^p.Tik the, Jew I " That opinion is formed, not only 
in Congress, or on Hotel steps ; it is made also in the school houses, in the 
town houses, at the h^oth stones, in the railroad cars, on board the steam- 
boats, in the social circle, in these Anti-Slavery gatherings which he despises. 
Mark you : TTtere is noihing potcerful etutugh to stand before it: It may be an 
almost divine institution ; it may be the bank vaults of Xew England ; it 
may be the mtning interests of Pennsylvania ; it may be the Harwich fish- 
ermen, whom he told to stand by the Union, because its bunting protected 
their decks ; it may be the factory operative, whom he told to uphold the 
"Union, because it made his cloth sell for half per cent, more a yard ; it may 
be a parchment Constitution, or even a Fugitive Slave Bill signed bv Mil- 
ULED Fn.TuoKE ! I ! — no matter, all are dust on the threshing floor of a 
reading public, once roused to indignation. Bemember this, when you 
would look down upon a meeting of a few hundreds in the one scale, and 
the fanatic violence of State Street in the other, that there is xothisg, 
Daxiei. Webstee being witness, strong enough to stand against pubhc 



,— and tf tiae tnew ad ti« proB sr aot iiMirti rf (km, ilinl 




Xapolcop sad, - 1 Hear Azee i 
iMjaaets." ICc Wiskxx sov » cf Ae 
moBarcb OK esE^" Ike aavi, "wi>oae Awcb— r1i»hif t» be Aifaa ly Ae 
f BB gi e » <f o]mtiaa^ABs efitTf»t af liie jtMdJrtJieegptrf Ae 
peoffe." "Itbadt^Ke.Jev!" Weba»ebeateidafieB,AMk-nBaadag 
btaiitid JLKiawj tdi^^raB opposed ftibeF^Bireate^^B, — ^m* 
a nniliiei cfMariaid i A il w ll iii n i j . GsartiKaiB. BsstikecaE^Mc. Ssassft- 
B^; mrr nr rhrni ~r It ie tir. efee ix wffl beat all tv^ diead iatfiti^aas « 
daat. SestB Md mniMi'Ti ee zE^. zrsi ve all kaov As ife uatrtmr «£ 
nataie's yu»AB viD, in tzaae. z^ier ar vear 

dead--«a^ aHK OB Wk> -7': :i 1 iil- be Ae ^ww i u of Ifce j 

g i uwA , let tbe fltatest he - ^aasade af a peapie 

to ^p******" TE^eiB^ ^ ^ . ^^ ^ ui^jaiB r 

o ini'^Riaiij aad ofi-repea: 

Yam. Bsj baiU tthst Ci - 'I pOe ir ^^ as Ae£o^ 

MDaOaos, ifitKia^iiadei iziii -=17. ^e pdse of & fizi 

vQl a ttBie beat B down. i. eartk- 

■ot UaUe to be ^ikcs br 

people." What is ikis box i 

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opiHiaB, so £k as -we icKXL . .zse:~ ^ 

&at "we beard £raaB. Bovd; ; . . _ ^ _ , _r • r ' ■ ■' 

pat dkvws.^ "Is b ewnc iis. in iie sc^.: 
pdbBe apBoca baFefteeer-ir - - -- 
fare tbe eaba eye of Koarr: 
-■X& -abif^ so lescae BJBL^ 

is ao dzoBe oa &e broad z 

»fiit qf jasace." TTBatif 

of MKBads9HSBieazi2=Xn- . . 

tbe pieaB aad ibe pa^si cc 

boFT tifes beads, aad -Av - : ^ 

tb<* i*iiTwal p'- TfTPl*^ 

Is vBHld be idie, t — ^-joa as itr. 

Wsasxaa's. like il ~ jeeB, 

dte arbe *: 
HalL c^E£_ 




a-ved bv :1 



i 



8 SPEECH. 

progress. There are those who occasionally weary of this moral suasion, and 
sigh for something tangible ; some po-\ver that they can feel, and see its ope- 
ration. The advancing tide you cannot mark. The gem forms unseen. The 
granite increases and crumbles, and you can hardly mark either process. The 
great change in a nation's opinion is the same. We stand here to-day, and if 
we look back twenty years, we can see a change in public opinion ; yes, we can 
see a great change. Then the great statesmen had pledged themselves not to 
talk on this subject. They have been made to talk. These hounds have been 
whipped into the traces of the nation's car, not by three newspapers, Avliich Na- 
poleon dreaded, but by one. (Cheers.) The great parties of the country have 
been broken to pieces and crumbled. The great sects have been broken to 
pieces. Suppose you cannot put yoiu- finger upon an individual fact ; still, 
in the great result, you see what Webster tells us in this speech — " Depend 
upon it, gentlemen, that between these two rival powers, the autocratic 
power, maintained by arms and force, and the popular power, maintained by 
opinion, the former is constantly decreasing ; and, thank God, the latter is 
constantly increasing. Real human liberty is gaining the ascendant ; — [he 
must feel sad at that !] — and the part which we have to act in all this great 
drama is to show ourselves in favor of those rights ; to uphold our ascend- 
ancy, and to carry it on, imtil we shall see it culminate in the highest heaven 
over our heads." 

Now I look upon this speech as the most remarkable Mr. Webster has 
ever made on the Anti- Slavery agitation to which we are devoted — as a 
most remarkable confession, imder the circumstances. I read it here and to 
you, because, in the circle I see around me, the larger proportion are Aboli- 
tionists — men attached to the movement which this meetmg represents — 
men whose thoughts are occasionally occupied Avith the causes and with the 
effects of its real progress. I wovdd force from the reluctant lips of the Secre- 
tary of State, his testimony to the real power of the masses. I said that the 
day was, before gunpowder, when the noble, clad in steel, was a match for a 
thousand. Gunpowder levelled peasant and prince. The printing press has 
done the same. In the midst of thinking people, in the long run, there are 
no great men. The accumulated intellect of the masses is greater than the 
heaviest brain God ever gave to a single man. Webster, though he may 
gather into his own person the confidence of parties, and the attachment of 
thousands throughout the country, is but a feather's weight in the balance 
against the average of public sentiment on the subject of Slavery. A news- 
l^aper paragraph, ^a county meeting, a gathering for conversation, a change 
in the character of a dozen individuals, these are the several fountains and 
sovirces of public opinion. And, friends, when we gather, month after 
month, at such meetings as these, we should encourage ourselves with con- 
siderations of this kind : — that we live in an age of democratic equality ; — 
that, for a moment, a party may stand against the age, but, in the end, it 
goes by the board ; — that the man who launches a soiind argument, who 
sets on two feet a starthng fact, and bids it travel from Maine to Georgia, is 
just as certain that in the end he will change the government, as if, to de- 
stroy the Capitol, he had placed gunpowder under the Senate Chamber. 



^ 



SPEECH. 9 

Natural philosophers tell us, that if you will only multiply the siraplest 
force into enough time, it will equal the greatest. So it is with the slow 
intellectual movement of the masses. It can scarcely be seen, but it is a 
constant movement ; it is the shadow on the dial, never still though never 
seen to move ; it is the tide, it is the ocean, gaining on the proudest and 
strongest biilwarks that human art or strength can build. It may be defied 
for a moment, but, in the end, Nature always triumphs. So the race, 
if it cannot drag a "Websteii along wth it, leaves liim behind and forgets 
him. (Loud cheers.) The race is rich enough to afford to do without the 
greatest intellects God ever let the devil buy. Stranded along the past, 
there are a great many dried mimimics of dead intellects, which the race 
found too heavy to drag forward. 

I hail the almighty power of the tongue. I swear allegiance to the om- 
nipotence of the press. The people never err. " Vox populi, vox Dei " — the 
voice of the people is the voice of God. I do not mean this of any single 
verdict which the people of to-day may record. In time, the selfishness of 
one class neutrahzes the selfishness of another. The interests of one age 
clash against the interests of another : but, in the great result, the race 
always means right. The people always mean right, and, in the end, they 
will have the right. I believe in the twenty millions — not the twenty 
millions that live now, necessarily — to arrange this question of Slavery, 
wliich priests and politicians have sought to keep out of sight. They have 
kept it locked up in the Senate chamber, they have hidden it behind the 
communion table, they have appealed to the superstitious and idolatrous 
veneration for the State and the Union to avoid this question, and so 
have kept it from the influence of the great democratic tendencies of the 
masses. But change all this, drag it from its concealment, and give it to the 
people ; launch it on the age, and all is safe. It mil find a safe harbor. A 
man is always selfish enough for himself. The soldier -will be selfish enough 
for liimself ; the merchant will be selfish enough for himself ; yes, he will 
be willing to go to hell to secure his own fortune, but he will not be ready 
to go there to make the fortune of his neighbor. No man ever yet was 
Avilling to sacrifice his own character for the benefit of his neighbor ; and 
whenever we shall be able to show this nation that the interests of a class, 
not of the whole, the interests of a portion of the country, not of the masses, 
are subserved hj holding our fellow-men in bondage, then we shall S]iike the 
gmis of the enemy, or get their artillery on our side. 

I want you to turn your eyes from institutions to men. The difficulty of 
the present day and -Rith us is, we are bullied by institutions. A man gets 
up in the pulpit, or sits on the bench, and we allow ourselves to be biiUicd 
by the judge or the clergyman, when, if he stood side by side with us, on 
the brick pavement, as a simple individual, his ideas would not have dis- 
turbed our clear thoughts an hour. Now, the duty of each Anti-Slavery 
man is simply this — Stand on the pedestal of your own individual inde- 
pendence, summon these mstitutions about you, and judge them. Tlie 
question is deep enough to require this judgment of you. This is wliat the 
cause asks of you, my friends ; and the moment you shall be willing to do 
9 



M 



10 



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12 SPEECH. 

willing, at all times, to be known throughout the rommunity as the all-talk 
party. The age of bullets is over. The ago of men armed in mail is over. 
The age of tlirones has gone by. The age of statesmen — God be praised ! 
such statesmen — is over. The age of thinkiag men has come. With the 
aid of God, then, every man I can reach, I will set thinking on the subject 
of Slavery. (Cheers.) The age of reading men has come. I will try to 
imbue every newspaper with Garrisonianism. (Loud applause.) The ago 
of the masses has come. Now, Daniel Weisstek counts one — Give him 
joy of it! — but the "rub-a-dub Agitation" counts at least twenty — 
nineteen better. Nineteen, whom no chance of nomination tempts to a 
change of opinions once a twelvemonth ; who need no Kossuth advent to 
recall them to their senses. 

"What I want to impress you with is, the great weight that is attached to 
the opinion of everything that can call itself a man. Give me anything that 
walks erect, and can read, and he shall count one in the millions of the 
Lord's sacramental host, that is yet to come up and trample all oppression in 
the dust. The weeds poured forth in nature's lavish luxuriance, give them 
but time, and their tiny roots shall rend asunder the foundations of palaces, 
and crumble the Pyramids to the earth. We may be weeds in comparison with 
these marked men ; but in the la-vish luxuriance of that nature Avhich has 
at least allowed us to be " thinking, reading men," I learn, Webster being 
my witness, that there is no throne potent enough to stand against us. It is 
morbid enthusiasm this that I have — Grant it. But they tcU us that this 
heart of mine, which beats so imintermittedly in the bosom, if its force 
could be directed against a granite pillar, would wear it to dust in the 
course of a man's life. Your Capitol, Daniel Webster, is marble, but the 
pulse of every humane man is beating against it. God will give us time, 
and the pulses of men shall beat it down. (Loud and enthusiastic cheering.) 
Take the mines — take the Harwich fishing skiffs — take the Lowell mills — 
take all the coin and the cotton — thank God, the day must be ours, for the 
hearts — the hearts, are on our side ! 

There is nothing stronger than hmnan prejudice. A crazy sentimcntalism 
like that of Peter the Hermit hurled half of Eui-ope upon Asia, and changed 
the destinies of kingdoms. We may be crazy. Would to God he would 
make us all crazy enough to forget for one moment the cold deductions of 
intellect, and let these hearts of ours beat, beat, beat, under the promptings 
of a conunon humanity. They have put wickedness into the statute book, 
and destruction is just as certain as if they had put gimpowder under the 
Capitol. That is my faith. That it is which turns my eye from the ten 
thousand newspapers, from the forty thousand pulpits, from the millions of 
Whigs, from the millions of Democrats, from the might of sect, from the 
marble government, from the iron army, from the navy riding at anchor, from 
all that we are accustomed to deem great and potent — turns it back to the 
simplest child or woman, to the first murmured protest that is heard against 
bad laws. I recognize in it the great future, the first rumblings of that 
volcano destined to overthrow these mighty preparations, aud bury in the 
hot lava of its full excitement all this laughing prosperity that now rests so 
secure on its side. 



SPEECH. 13 

All hail, Public Opinion ! To be sure, it is a dangerous thing under wliich 
to live. It rules to-day in the desire to obey all kuads of laws, and takes 
your life. It rules again in the love of liberty, and rescues Shadrach from 
Boston Court House. It rules to-morrow in the manhood of him who loads 
the musket to shoot down, — God be praised ! — the man hunter, Gorsuch. 
(Applause.) It rules in Syracuse, and the Slave escapes to Canada. It is 
our interest to educate this people in humanity, and in deep reverence for 
the rights of the lowest and humblest individual that makes iip our num- 
bers. Each man here, in fact, holds his property and his life dependent on 
the constant presence of an Agitation like this of Anti-Slavery. Eternal 
vigilance is the price of liberty — power is ever stealing from the many to tlie 
few. The manna of popular hberty must be gathered each day, or it is 
rotten. The living sap of to-day outgrows the dead rind of yesterday. The 
hand entrusted with power becomes, cither from human depravity or esprit 
du corps, the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continual oversight 
can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot : only 
by unintermitted Agitation can a people be kept sufficiently awake to prin- 
ciple not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity. All clouds, it 
is said, have srmshine behind them, and all evils have some good result ; so 
Slavery, by the necessity of its abolition, has saved the freedom of the wliite 
race fi-om being melted in the luxury or buried beneath the gold of its own 
success. Never look, therefore, for an age when the people can be quiet 
and safe. At such times Despotism, lilce a shrouding mist, steals over the 
mirror of Freedom. The Dutch, a thousand years ago, buUt against the 
ocean their bulwarks of willow and mud. Do they trust to that ? No. 
Each year the patient, industrious peasant gives so much time from the 
cultivation of his soil and the care of his cliildren, to stop the breaks and 
replace the willow which insects have eaten, that he may keep the land 
his fathers rescued from the water, and bid defiance to the waves that roar 
above his head, as if demanding back the broad fields man has stolen from 
their realm. 

Some men suppose that, in order to the people's governing themselves, 
it is only necessary, as Fisher Ames said, that the " Rights of Man be 
printed, and that every citizen have a copy." As the Epicureans, two thou- 
sand years ago, imagined God a being who arranged this marvellous ma- 
chinery, set it going, and then sunk to sleep. Republics exist only on the 
tenm-e of being constantly agitated. The Anti- Slavery Agitation is an im- 
portant, nay, an essential part of the machinery of the State. It is not a 
disease nor a medicine. No ; it is the normal state — the normal state of 
the Nation. Never, to our latest posterity, can we afford to do without 
prophets, like Garrison, to stir up the monotony of wealth, and re-awake 
the people to the great ideas that are constantly fading out of theh minds, 
to trouble the waters that there may be health in their flow. Every govern- 
ment is always gro\\ing corrupt. Every Secretary of State is, by the very 
necessity of his position, an apostate. (Hisses and cheers.) I mean what I 
say. He is an enemy to tlie people, of necessity, because the moment he 
joins the government, he gravitates against that popular Agitation which is 



14 SPEECH. 

the life of a Republic. A Republic is nothing but a constant overflow of 
lava. The princii^les of Jefferson are not u-p to the principles of to-day. 
It was well said of "Webster, that he knows well the Hancock, and Adams 
of 1776, but he does not know the Hancocks and Adamses of to-day. The 
Republic that sinks to sleep, trusting to constitutions and machinery, to 
politicians and statesmen for the safety of its liberties, never will have any. 
The people are to be waked to a new effort, just as the Church has to be 
regenerated, in each age. The Anti-Slavery Agitation is a necessity of 
each age, to keep ever on the alert this faitliful vigilance so constantly in 
danger of sleep. We must live like our Puritan fathers, who always went 
to Church, and sat down to dinner, when the Indians were iir their neigh- 
borhood, with their musket-lock on the one side and a draT\Ti sword on the 
other. 

If I had time or voice to-night, I might proceed to a further development 
of this idea, and I trust I could make it clear, which I fear I have not yet 
done. To my conviction, it is Gospel truth, that, instead of the Anti- 
Slavery Agitation being an evil, or even the unwelcome cure of a disease in 
this government, the youngest child that lives may lay his hand on the 
youngest child that his gray hairs may see, and say, " The Agitation was 
commenced when the Declaration of Independence was signed ; it took its 
second tide when the Anti-Slavery Declaration was signed in 1833 ; a move- 
ment, not the cure but the diet of a free people ; not the homoeopathic or 
the allojiathic dose, to which a sick land has recourse, but the daily cold 
water and the simple bread — the daily diet and absolute necessity — the manna 
of a people wandering in the wilderness." There is no Canaan in poKtics. As 
health lies in labor, and there is no royal road to it but through toil, so 
there is no republican road to safety but in constant distrust. " In distrust," 
said Demosthenes, " are the nerves of the mind." Let us see to it that 
these sentinel nerves are ever on the alert. If the Alps, piled in cold and still 
sublimity, be the emblem of Despotism, the ever restless Ocean is ours, 
which, girt within the eternal laws of Gravitation, is pure only because 
never still. (Long continued applause.) 



SPEECH 

AT FANEUIL HALL, FRIDAY EVENING, JANUARY 30. 

[PHONOGRAPHICALLT REPORTED E? J. M. W. TERRINTON.] 



Mr. President: — I do not foci disposed to taUc about Colonization to- 
night, and I am glad to thinlc that, after the remarks already submitted to 
lis, it is unnecessary anything more should be said on that topic. I mean, 
the colonization of black men to Africa. I have been colottized myself from 
this Hall for some time ; and in getting here again, I jjrefer to go back to the 
old note, and try to get the " hang of this school house." (Laughter.) You 
know Baron Munchausen says, in one of his marvellous stories, that it was 
so cold one day in Russia, when he began to play a tune on liis trumpet, that 
half of it froze in the instrument before it could get out ; and a few months 
afterwards, he was startled, in Italy, to hear, of a sudden, the rest of the 
tune come pealing forth. We were somewhat frozen up a while ago in this 
Hall, with George Thompson on the platform ; now we want the rest of the 
tune. (Laughter and cheers.) 

The Mail of this morning says that we have no right to this Hall, because 
it was refused to the greatest statesman of the land — to Daniel Webster. 
I believe this is a mistake. The Mayor and Aldermen went to Mm, meta- 
phorically, on theu" knees, and entreated the great man to make use of the 
old walls. It was the first time Faneuil Hall ever begged anybody to enter 
it ; but Daniel was pettish, and would not come. Very proper in liim, too ; 
it is not the place in which to defend the Fugitive Slave Bill. Ho did right 
when he refused to come. "Who built these walls ? Peter Faneuil's ances- 
tors were themselves fugitives from an edict almost as cruel as the Fugitive 
Slave Law ; and only he whose soul and bodj^ refuse to crouch beneath in- 
human legislation, has a right to be heard here — nobody else. (Cheers.) 
A Huguenot built this Hall, who was not permitted to Uve on the soil of his 
own beautiful France, and it may naturally be supposed, that he dedicated 
it to the most ultra, outside idea of liberty. It is a place for the running 
Slave to find a shelter — not for a recreant Statesman ! (Deafening cheers.) 



16 SPEECH. 

This Hall has never been made ridiculous but once ; never was made the 
laughing-stock of New England but once. That was about nine months ago, 
when the " Sinis brigade" were left soundly asleep here, in the gray of the 
morning, while the awkward squad of Marshal Tukey stole down State Street 
with Thomas Sims, not deigning to ask their permission or their aid, and 
leaving them to find out the next morning, that the great deed had been 
done, without their so much as "hearing a noise." Soldiers asleep in Fan- 
euil Hall, while miscliief was doing so near as State street ? O, what gallant 
soldiers they must have been. (Loud laughter and cheers.) 

Times have changed since Ave were here before. The last time I stood on 
this platform, there sat beside me a heroine M'orthy to sit in the hall of the 
old Hviguenot — one Elizajseth Blakeley, a mulatto girl, of "Wilmington, 
N. C, who, loving freedom more than Slavery, concealed herself on board a 
Boston brig, in the little narrow passage between the side of the vessel and 
the partition that formed the cabin — two feet eight inches of room. There 
she lay, while her inhuman master, almost certain she was on board the 
vessel, had it smoked with sulphur and tobacco three times over. Still she 
bore it. She came North, half frozen, in the most inclement month of the 
year — this month. She reached Boston just able to crawl. Where did she 
come .■' O, those were better times then ! She came here. Just able to 
stand, fresh from that baptism of suffering for liberty, she came here. We 
told her story. And with us that night — within ten feet of Avherc I stand 
— sat FiiEDEiiiKA BuEMER, the representative of the literature of the old 
world ; her humane sympathies were moved so mucli, that the rose bud 
she held in her hand, she sent (honoring me by sending it by my hand) to 
the first representative of American Slavery she had seen. It was the tri- 
bute of Europe's heart and intellect to a heroine of the black race, in Fauetiil 
Hall. Times have changed since. Not to speak of the incense wliich Miss 
Bremer has, half ignorantly, I hope, laid on the demon altar of our land, it 
would not be safe to put that Betsey Blakeley on this platform to-night ; 
it Avould not be safe for her to appear in a public meeting. What has 
changed this pubKc opinion ? I wish it was some smgle man. I wish it was 
some official of the city, that so we could make him the scapegoat of pubUc 
indignation, let him carry it forth, and thus the fair fame of our city be freed. 
This, Mr. President, brings mc to my subject. The resolutions I wish to 
speak to are these. I think they ought to be read in Faneuil Hall, at this, the 
first meeting the Abolitionists have held here since the foul deed of Aj^ril 12th 
disgraced the cit)\ I feel that these peddling hucksters of State and MUk 
Streets owe me full atonement for the foul dishonor they have brought upon 
the citj' of my birth. 



Besolvcd, That, as citizens of Boston and the Commonwealth, we record 
our deep disapprobation and indignant protest against the siu-render of 
Thomas Sims by the City, its sanction of the cowardly and l>ing pohcy of 
the poHce, its servile and volunteer zeal in behalf of the man-hunters, and 
its deliberate, Avanton and avowed violation of the laws of the Common- 
wealth, for the basest of all piu'po.ses — Slave-trading, selling a free man into 
bondage, that State street and Milk street might make money. 



SPEECH. 17 

Next we come to that man who stood at yonder door, looking on, while 
Geokge Thompson was mobbed from this platform ; who, neither an honor- 
able Mayor nor a gentleman, broke at once his oath of office and his promise 
as a gentleman, to give us this Hall, for certain eighty dollars, to be paid 
him, and when he had stood by and seen us mobbed out of it, thovight 
he mended his character by confessing his giiilt, in not daring to send in 
abiU! 

Resolved, That the circumstances of the case -wdll iiot allow us to believe 
that tliis infamous deed was the act of the City Government merely ; and 
then, as Boston-born men, some of us, comforting ourselves in the reflection, 
that the fawning sycophant who disgraced the ilayor's chair was not born 
on the peninsula whose fan- fame he blotted ; but all the facts go to show, 
that in this, as in all liis life, he was only the easy and shuffling tool of the 
moneyed classes, and therefore too insignificant to be remembered with any 
liighcr feeling than contempt. 

Resolved, That we cherish a deep and stern indignation towards the judges 
of the Commonwealth, who, in personal cowardice, pitiful subser'V'iency, utter 
lack of official dignity, and entire disregard of their official oaths, witnessed, 
in silence, the violation of laws they were bound to enforce, and disgraced 
tlie Bench once honored by the presence of a Sedgwick and a Sewall. 

I do not forget that the Church, all the wliile tliis melancholy scene was 
passing, stood by and upheld a merciless people in the execution of an inhu- 
man law, accepted the barbarity, and baptized it " Christian duty." O, no, 
I do not forget this. But I remember that, in an enterprising, trading city 
like ours, the merchants are full as much, if not more, responsible for the 
state of public opinion, than the second-rate men who rather occupy, than 
fill, our pulpits, and who certainly seldom tempt the brains of their hearers 
to violate the command of the Jewish Scriptures, "Thou shalt not do any 
work on the Sabbath day." 

Do you ask why the Abolitionists denounce the traders of Boston .' It is 
because the merchants chose to send back Thomas Sims — pledged their in- 
dividual aid to Marshal Tukey, in case there should be any resistance ; it is 
because the merchants did it to make money. Thank God, they have not 
made any ! (Great cheering.) Like the negro who went to hear White- 
field, and rolled in the dust in the enthusiasm of his religious excitement, 
until they told him it was not Whitefield, when he picked himself up, crying 
out, " Then I dirty myself for nothing." So they dii-tied themselves for 
nothing ! (Tremendous cheering.) If Slavehunting only can save them, 
may bankruptcy sit on the ledger of every one of those fifteen hundred 
scoundrels who ofi'ered Marshal Tukey their aid ! (Tiunxiltuous applause.) 

There is one thing to be rejoiced at — it is tliis : the fact that the police of 
this city did not dare even to arrest a Fugitive Slave, calling liim such. The 
dogs of Marshal Tukey that arrested Thomas Sims in Richmond Street had 
to disgiuse themselves to do it, — dressed in the costiune and called them- 
selves watchmen ; and told a lie — that the arrest was for theft, — m order to 
keep peace in the street, while they smuggled him into the carriage. Claim, 
for the honor of Boston, that when her police became manhuntcrs, they put 
3 



18 SPEECH, 

their badges in their pockets, and lied, lest their prey should be torn from 
their grasp, in the first burst of poi^ular indignation. It was the first time 
in Boston — I hope it will be the last — that the laws were obKged to be ex- 
ecuted by lying and behind bayonets, in the night. So much, though it be 
very little, may still be said for Boston, — that Sims was arrested by lying 
and disguised policemen ; he was judged by a Commissioner who sat behind 
bayonets ; and was carried off ia the gray of the morning, after the moon 
set, and before the sun rose, by a police body armed -with swords. She was 
disgraced, but it was by force ; while, the reverse of the Roman rule, cedant 
arma toga, the robe gave way to the sword. The law was executed ; but it 
was beliind bayonets. Such laws do not last long. (Loud cheers.) Courts 
that sit behind chams, seldom sit more than once. (Renewed cheermg.) 

[A Voice — " The Whigs defend it."] 

O, I know that Mr. Choate has been here, — I heard liim, and before a 
Whig caucus, defend the policy of the Fugitive Slave Bill. He told us, 
while I sat in the gallery, of the " infamous ethics " — the " infamous ethics, 
that, from the Declaration of Independence and the Sermon on the Mount 
deduced the duty of immediate emancipation." The sentiment was received, 
I am thankful to say, with a solemn silence, though Rufus Choate uttered 
it to an assembly of Webster Whigs. I heard it said to-day, that the Abo- 
litionists had done nothing, because a Fugitive, witliin the last twelve 
months, had been taken out of Boston. They have done a great deal, since, 
sixteen or seventeen years ago, Peleg Spiiague, standing on tlais platform, 
pointed to that portrait; [the portrait of Wasliington,] and called him " that 
Slaveholder." It is not now considered a merit in Washington that he held 
Slaves ; men apologize for it now. I stood in this hall, sixteen years ago, 
when "Abolitionist" was linked with epithets of contempt, in the silver 
tones of Otis, and all the charms that a divine eloquence and most felicitous 
diction could tlirow around a bad cause were given it ; the excited mrdtitude 
seemed actually ready to leap up beneath the magic of his speech. It would 
be something, if one must die, to die by such a hand ; a hand somewhat 
worthy and able to stifle Anti-Slavery, if it could be stifled. The orator Avas 
worthy of the gigantic task he attempted ; and thousands crowded before 
him, every one of their hearts melted in the glowing enthusiasm of that 
eloquence, beneath which Massachusetts had bowed, not unworthily, for 
more than thirty years. I came here again this last fall. It was the first 
time that I had been present since at a Whig meeting. I found Rufus 
Choate on the platform. Compared with the calm grace and dignity of 
Otis, the thought of which came rushing back, he struck me like a monkey 
in convulsions. (Roars of laughter and cheers.) Alas, I said, if the party 
that has owned Massachusetts so long, wliich spoke to me, as a boj', through 
the lips of QuiNCY and Sullivan, of Webster and Otis, has sunk down to 
the miserable sophistry of this mountebank ! — and I felt proud of the city 
of my birth, as I looked over the mui-muring multitude beneath me, on 
whom Iris spasmodic chatter feU like a wet blanket. (Great laughter and 
cheering.) He did not dare to touch a second time on the Fugitive Slave 
Bill. He tried it once,with liLs doctrine of " uifamous etliics," and the men 



SPEECH. 19 

were as silent as the pillars around them. Ah, thought I, we have been here 
a little too often before ; and if -ne have not impressed the seal of our senti- 
ments very deeply on the people, they have at least learned that immediate 
emancijiation, though possibly it be a dream, is not " infamous etliics ; " and 
that such doctrine, the Declaration of Independence and the Sermon on the 
Mount, need more than the flashy rhetoric of a Webster retainer to tear 
them asunder. (Great cheering.) 

The judges of the Commonwealth — the judges of the Commonwealth — 
I have something W say of them. I wish sometimes we lived in England, 
and I will tell you why. Because Jolin Bull has some degree of self-respect 
left. There is an innate, dogged obstinacy in him, that would never permit 
the successors of a Hale, a Buller, a Mansfield, or 'a Brougham, to 
stoop beneath any chain that a City Constable could put round West- 
minster Hall. I was once a member of the profession myself, but glad 
I am so no longer, since the head of it has bowed liis burly person to 
Francls Tukey's chain. ('Cheers.) Did he not know that he was making 
history that hour, when the Chief Justice of the Commonwealth entered 
his own Court, bowing do-mr hke a criminal beneath a chain four feet from 
the soil ? Did he not know that he Avas the author of that decision Avhich 
shall be remembered when every other case in Pickering's Reports is lost, 
declaring the Slave Med a free woman the moment she sat foot on the soil 
of Massachusetts, and that he owed more respect to himself and his own 
fame, than to disgrace the ennine by passing beneath a chain ? There is 
something m emblems. There is something, on great occasions, even in the 
attitude of a man. Chief Justice Shaw betrayed the Bench and the Courts 
of the Commonwealth, and the honor of a noble profession, when for any 
p\u-pose, still less for the purpose of enabling George T. Curtis to act his 
melancholy farce in peace, he crept under a chain into his own court room. 
And besides, what a wanton and gratuitous insult it was ! AATiat danger 
was there, with two hundred men inside the Court House, and three hun- 
dred men around it on the sidewalk ? Near iivc hundred sworn policemen 
in and around that building — what need for any chain ? It was put there 
in wanton insult to the feelings of the citizens of Boston, nothing else ; — in 
wanton sersdlity to the Slave Power, nothing else; — in wanton flattery 
to Daniel Webster. Yes, it was the gratuitousness of the insult that makes 
it all the more unbeai-able ! And the " old chief," as we loved to call him, 
made himself, in timid servility, party to the insidt and the degradation. 
How truly American ! Ah, our Slave system by no means exists only on 
Southern plantations ! 

We are said to be unreasonable in tliis manner of criticismg the uistitu- 
tions, laws and men of oiu- country. It is thought that, as Uttle men, we 
are bound to tune our voices and bow our heads to the great rnteUects, as 
they are called, of the land — Mr. Webster and others. He teUs us, that 
there are certain important interests concerned in this question, which we 
are bound to regard, and not abstract theories about the equality of men, 
and the freedom of humble individuals. Well, aU I say to that is, when 
doUars are to be discussed, let him disc\iss them with Franklin Haven, in 



20 SPEECH. 

the directors' room of the Merchants Bank. Let him discuss them over the 
bursting ledgers of Milk street — that is the place for dollar talks. But there 
is no room for dollars in Faneuil Hall. The idea of liberty is the great fun- 
damental principle of this spot ; — that a man is worth more than a bank 
vault. (Loud cheers.) 

I know Mr. Webster has, on various occasions, intimated that this is not 
statesmanship in the United States ; that the cotton mills of Lowell, the 
schooners of Cape Cod, the coasters of Marblehead, the coal and iron mines 
of Pennsylvania, and the business of Wall street, are -the great interests 
which this government is framed to protect. He intimated, all through the 
recent discussion, that property is the great element this government is to 
stand by and protect — the test by which its success is to be appreciated. 
Perhaps it is so ; perhaps it is so ; and if the making of money, if ten per 
cent, a year, if the placing of one dollar on the top of another, be the highest 
effort of human skill ; if the answer to the old Puritan catechism — " What 
is the chief end of man" — is to be changed, as, according to modern State 
craft it ought to be, why, be it so. Nicholas, of Russia, made a catecliisra 
for the Poles, in which they are taught that Christ is next below God, and 
the Emperor of all the Russias is next below Christ. So, judging by the 
tenor of his recent speeches, Daxiel has got a catechism, " AVhat is the 
chief end of man ? " The old one of the Wesminster divines, of Seldex and 
Hugh Peteks, of Cotton and the Mathers, used to answer, " To glorify 
God and enjoy hi-m forever; " that is KAXE-treason noAv. The " chief end 
of man ? " why, it is to save the Union ! 

A Voice. — " Three cheers for the Union ! " 

Mr. Phillips. — Feeble cheers those! — (Great applause) — and a very 
thankless office it is to defend the Union on that lay. Did you ever read the 
fable of the wolf that met the dog ? The one was fat, the other gaiuit and 
famine struck. The woK said to the dog, "You are very fat." " Yes," re- 
plied the dog, " I get along very well at home." " Well," said the wolf, 
" could you take me home.'" " O, certainly." So they trotted along to- 
gether ; but as they neared the house, the wolf caught sight of several ugly 
scars on the neck of the dog, and stopping, cried, " Where did you get those 
scars on your neck ; they look very sore and bloody ? " " O," said the dog, 
" they tie me up at night, and I have rather an inconvenient iron collar on 
my neck. But that 's a small matter ; they feed me well." " On the 
whole," said the woK, " takmg the food and the coUar together, I prefer to 
remain in the woods." Now, if I am allowed to choose, I do not like the 
collar of Daniel Webster and Parson Dewey, and there are certain ugly 
scars I see about their necks. I should not like, Dr. Dewey, to promise to 
return my mother to Slavery ; and, Mr. Webster, I prefer to be lean and 
keep my " prejudices," to getting fat by smothering them. I do not like 
your idea of the Yankee character, wliich seems to be too near that of the 
Scotsman, of whom Dr. Johnson said that if he saw a dollar on the other 
side of hell, he would make a sjiruig for it at the risk of falling in. (Laugh- 
ter.) Under correction of these great statesmen and divines, I cannot think 
this the beau ideal of human perfection. I do not care whether the 



SPEECH. 21 

schooners of Harwich, under Slaveholding btintiiig, catch fish and keep 
them or not ; I do not care whether the mills of Abbot Lawrenxe make 
him worth two millions or one ; whether the iron and coal muies of Penn- 
sylvania are profitable or not, if m order to have them profitable, we must 
go down on our marrow bones and thank Daniel Webster for sa\'iiig 
his Union, call Mayor Bigelow an honorable man and Mayor, and acknowl- 
edge Francis Tukey as Chief Justice of the Commonwealth. I prefer hun- 
ger and the woods to the hopeless task of maintaining the sincerity of Daniel 
Webster, or bending under the chain of Fu\xcis Tukey. (Tremendous 
cheering.) 

Sir, I have something to say of this old Commonwealth. I went up one 
day into the Senate Chamber of Massachusetts, in wliich the Otises, the 
Quincts, and the Adamses, Parsons and Sedgwick, Sewall and Strong, 
have sat and spoke in times gone by ; in which the noblest legislation in the 
world, on many great points of human concern, has made her the noblest 
State in the world, — the good old Commonwealth of Massachusetts, — and 
I stood there to see this impudent City ^larshal tell the Senate of Massa- 
chusetts that he knew he was trampling on the laws of the Commonwealth, 
and that he iutended to, so long as cotton-bom and bought Mayors told him 
to do so ! And there was not spirit enough in the Free SoU party, — no, nor 
in the Democratic party, — there was not self-respect enough in the very 
Senators who were sworn to maintaiu these laws, to defend them against this 
insolent boast of a City Constable. Now, fellow-citizens, you may, aud 
probably do, think me a fanatic ; till you judge men and things on different 
principles, I do not care much what you think me ; 1 have outgrown that 
mteresting anxiety, — but I tell you this, if I see the Commonwealth upside 
do\^Ti, I mean to keep my neck free enough from collars to say so ; and I 
thmk it is upside down when a City Constable dictates law in the Senate 
Chamber of Massachusetts. (Loud cheers.) 

Mr. President, let me add one thing more. For Francis Tukey, I have no 
epithet of contempt, or of mdignation. He may, and does, for aught I know, 
perform his duties as City Marshal efficiently and weU.. I know he would, 
had he been present, have done his duty, and his Deputy stood ready to do it 
that night in George Thompson's presence, if we had really had a Mayor, 
and not an old woman in the Mayor's chair. (Great laughter and cheering.) 
I find little fault, comparatively, -with the City Marshal of Boston, that he 
did the infamous duty which the merchants of Boston set hini. The fault I 
rather choose to note is that the owmer of the brig Acorn can walk up State 
Street, and be as honored a man as he was before ; that John H. Pearson 
walks our streets as erect as ever, and no merchant shrinks from his side. 
But we wUl put the fact that he owned that brig, and the infamous use he 
made of it, so blackly on record, that his children — yes, his children, — 
would gladly, twenty years hence, forego all the wealth he will leave them, 
to blot out that single record. (Enthusiastic applause ) The time shall 
come when it aa-IU be thought the unkindest thing in the world for any one 
to remmd the son of that man, that his father's name was John H. Pearson, 
and that he owned the Acorn. (Renewed cheering ) 



22 SPEECH. 

[At this point a voice called out, " Three cheers for John II. Peakson." 
After what had been said fi'om the platform, such a call was not Ukely to 
be very warmly responded to ; but one or two voices were raLsed, and Mr. 
Phillips continued.] 

Yes, it is fitting that the cheer should be a poor one, when, in the 
presence of that merchant, [pomting to the portrait of John Hancock] 
of that merchant, who led the noblest movement for civil liberty ever 
made on this side the ocean, when, m his presence, you attempt to cheer 
the miserable carrier of Slaves, who calls himself, and alas ! according to 
the present average of State Street, has a right to call himself, a Boston 
merchant. 

I want to remark one other change, since we were shut out of FaneuU 
Hall. It is this : Within a few months, I stood in this Hall, when Charles 
FuAxcis Adams was on the platform ; — a noble representative, a worthy 
son, let ^me say in passing, of the two Adamses that hung here above him. 
While here he had occasion to mention the name of Daniel Webster, as I 
haA'e once or twice to-night, and it was received with cheer on cheer, four, 
five and six times repeated during the course of his speech. In fact, he 
could hardlj- go on for the noisy opposition. That was at a tune when some 
men were crazy enough to thinli that Daniel would yet be nominated for 
the Presidency ; but those gaudy soap bubbles have all burst. [" Three 
cheers for Daniel Webster."] Yes, three cheers for Sir Pertinax 
M' Sycophant, Avho, all his life long has been bowing down to the Slave 
Power to secure the Presidency ; willing to sacrifice his manhood for the 
promise of a mess of pottage, and destined to be outwitted at last. (Cheers.) 
Three cheers for the man who, after "many great and swelling words" 
against Texas, when finally the question of the Mexican war was before the 
Senate, did not dare to vote, but dodged the question, afraid to be wholly 
Southerner or Northerner, and striving, in vain, to outdo Winthop in facing 
both ways. (Cheers.) Three cheers for the man who went into Virginia, 
and under an " October sun " of the Old Dominion, pledged hhnself — the 
recreant New Englander ! — to sUence on the Slave question ; a pledge infa- 
mous enough in itself, but whose infamy was doubled when he broke it only 
to speak against the Slave on the seventh of March, 1850. Tluee cheers for 
him ! [They were given, but so faintly, that a shout of derision went up 
from the whole audience.] Three cheers for the statesman Avho said on the 
steps of the Revere House, that "this Agitation must be put down," and 
the Agitationists have entered Paneuil Hall before him. (Great applause.) 
Three cheers for the man who could afford no better name to the Abolition- 
ists than " rub-a-dub Agitators," till Kossuth found no method but theirs 
to chain the millions to liiniself ; and then this far-sighted statesman discov- 
ered that " there were people inclined to underrate the influence of public 
opinion." (Cheers.) Three cheers for the man Avho gave the State a new 
motive to send Horace Mann back to Washington, lest we should be thought 
guilty abroad of shocking bad taste in the old Imperial tongue of the 
Romans. (Cheers.) Three cheers for the man — (O, I like to repeat the 
Book of Daniel) — three cheers for " the Whig — the Massachusetts Whig — 



SPEECH. 23 

the Faneuil Hall "NMiig," who came home to ilassachiisetts — his own Mas- 
sachusetts, the State he thought he owned, bod)'- and soiil — that came 
home to ^Massachusetts, and lobbied so efficiently as to secure the election 
of Chaeles Sumxee to the Senate of the United States. (Loud cheers.) 

A Voice — "Three cheers for Chaeles Sumnee." (Overwhelming ap- 
plause.) ["Three cheers for Webstee."] 

Mr. Phillips continued — I do not know that I care, Mr. Chaii-man, wliich 
way the balance of cheers goes in respect to the gentleman whose name has 
just been mentioned [^Ir. Webstee.] It is said, you know, that when 
Wasliington stood before the surrendering army of Cornwallis, some of the 
American troops, as Cornwallis came forward to sui'rcnder liis sword, began, 
in very bad taste, to cheer. The noble Yirginian turned to them and said, 
"Let posterity cheer for us;" and they were silent. Now, if Daniel 
"Webstee has done anything on the subject of Slavery which posterity vnil 
not have the kindness to forget, may he get cheers for it, fifty years hence, 
and in this Hall ; using my Yankee privilege, however, " I rather guess " 
some future D'Israeli will be able to put that down in continuation of his 
grandfather's chapter of " Events that never took place." I much, I very 
much doubt, whether, fifty years hence, Massachusetts will not choose men 
with back bones to send to Wasliington ; not men who go there to yield up, 
to the great temptations, social and political, of the capital, the distinctive 
interests of Massachusetts and New England. I believe, no matter whether 
the Abolitionists have done much or little, that the average of political inde- 
pendence has risen A^'ithin the last ten or fifteen years. I know that strange 
sounds have been heard from the House of Rejiresentatives and the Senate 
vdthin the last ten or fifteen years : that the old tone so often breathed 
there of Northern submission has very much changed since John Quincy 
Adams vmdicated free speech on the floor of that House. I read just now 
a speech worthy, in some respects, of Faneuil Hall, from the lips of Eobeet 
Eantoul, in rebuke of a recreant Abohtionist from the banks of the Con- 
necticut — [George T. Davis.] I knoV not what may be the future 
course of Mr. Rantoul on tliis question ; I know not how erect he may 
stand hereafter ; but I am \vilLing to give him good credit in the future, so 
well paid has been this his first bill of exchange. (Great cheering.) He 
has done, at least, liis duty to the constituency he represented. He looked 
North for his instructions. The time has been when no Massaclausetts rep- 
resentative looked North ; we saw only their backs. They have always 
looked to the Southern Cross ; they never turned their eyes to the North 
Star. They never looked back to the Massachusetts that sent them. 
Charles Allen and Horace Mann, no matter how far they may be from 
the level of what we call Anti-Slavery, show us at least this cheering sign. 
While speaking, they have turned their faces toward Massachusetts. They 
reflect the public opinion of the State they represent. They look to Faneuil 
Hall, not to " the October sun of the Old Dominion." Now, Mr. Chairman, 
if we can come to this Hall, year after year ; if we can hold these meetings ; 
if we can sustain any amoimt of ritlicule for the sake of Anti-Slavery ; if 
we can till yonder State House with legislative action that shall vindicate 



24 SPEECH. 

the old fame of the State ; if we can fill every town house and school house 
in the State mth Anti- Slavery agitation, then the eyes of every caucus and 
every political meeting, and of Congress, will all turn North, and, God 
willing, they shall see a North worth looking at. We will have better evi- 
dence than the somewhat apocryjihal assurance of Mr. Webster, at Marsh- 
field, in '48, that the North Star is at last discovered. There will not only 
be a slirine, but worshippers. (Cheers.) 

I have not the voice to detain this meeting any longer. I am rejoiced to 
find myself again in Faneuil Hall, and am glad it has so hai:)pened that the 
very first meeting of the Massachusetts Anti- Slavery Society, since April 
12th, 1851, has been within these walls, and that the first note of their 
rebuke of the City Government, and of the Milk Street mterest whose 
servant it stooped to be, has been from the platform of Faneuil Hall. 
(Applause,) 









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